Audi to Revise Emissions Control Software

No. 24, 2015—Audi AG will revise emissions control software for more than 85,000 Volkswagen vehicles with 3.0-liter diesel engines that U.S regulators said earlier this month violated U.S. clean air laws.

Audi will submit new applications for U.S. government emission certification for the revised software, VW said in a statement. Once approved by EPA and California’s Air Resources Board, Audi will make the software available to be installed in the vehicles. The company also extended its U.S. market stop-sale on new models powered 3.0-liter diesel vehicles “until further notice.”

The plan indicates that the 85,000 or more Audi, Porsche and VW vehicles powered by 3.0-liter diesels can be made compliant with a software alone, allowing the automaker to avoid the type of costly hardware retrofits expected to be needed to remedy its nearly 500,000 2.0-liter diesels with illegal “defeat device” software.

Audi said its plans to “revise, document in detail, and resubmit for U.S. approval certain parameters” of its 3.0-liter diesel emissions software following a meeting last week between Audi executives and officials from the EPA and CARB about the issue.